Town made a bright start, putting Fleet under pressure with a series of early corners, one of which saw an Andy Matthews header pushed around by the post by Sam Gray.

Playing against a strong wind in the first half, Fin Tombs had to make a vital clearance to clear the danger and prevent Seb Karczewski seizing onto a long bouncing ball in the Thatcham box.

But the Kingfishers opened the scoring on 17 minutes when Kye Williams latched on to Curtis Angell’s ball forward and calmly dinked it past the outrushing goalkeeper.

Thatcham dealt with a spell of Fleet pressure and almost made it two on the stroke of half-time. Firstly, Matthews, up against his former team-mates, had a header tipped over and from the resulting corner Angell clipped a shot a foot wide of the far post.

Early in the second half Fleet came close when Liam Avery stretched to meet a cross but his header was narrowly off target.

But Thatcham broke to score a second on 52 minutes as Williams advanced to the by-line and cut it back for Dan Smith. The midfielder’s first shot was saved but his second was adjudged to have crossed the line before being hacked clear.

Almost immediately though, Williams brought down Sam Bartlett in the corner of the area and Bartlett reduced the arrears from the penalty spot.

Then four minutes later Fleet were awarded a second penalty as Sean Swift blasted a shot against Andrews with the referee penalising the Town defender for hand-ball. Again Barlett sent Wieczorek the wrong way to level it at 2-2.

Despite this big set-back, Thatcham showed the character to re-take the lead on 67 minutes. Knight picked up Angell’s ball forward, and with Tyrese Georcelin creating a distraction with a run on the overlap, the forward took advantage of the time and space to smash home a shot from 25 yards.

As the rain teemed down, Fleet put Thatcham under late pressure with Wieczorek making a fine stop to deny George Sellick, and a determined Thatcham performance was rewarded with three points.

TEAM : Maciej Wieczorek, Fin Tombs, Tyrese Georcelin, Callum Willmoth, Archie Denton, Andy Matthews, Kye Williams, Luke Polding, Charlie Knight, Dan Smith, Curtis Angell. SUB ON : Archie Goode. SUBS UNUSED : Rowan Clark, Finley Meikle, Callum Winchcombe, Mackenzie Creech

Attendance : 161